There’s a point in painting where you stop trying to solve the canvas and begin listening to it instead.
I think this painting marks one of those moments for me.
The piece began simply enough — a familiar corner of our entryway with mismatched chairs, a small table, a plant, angled morning light, and the quiet geometry of everyday life in Northern New Mexico. Nothing dramatic. No grand subject. Just the entry to our home I pass through every day.
But somewhere during the process, the painting stopped being about the objects themselves.
It became about balance. About allowing space to remain quiet. About trusting awkwardness. About letting flat shapes coexist with illusionistic depth without forcing either one to win. Earlier versions of myself would have overworked this painting. I would have tried to explain every inch of it. Tighten the drawing. Refine the transitions. “Finish” it into submission.
Instead, I let some passages stay uncertain.
The large gray wall became less a backdrop than an atmosphere. The black window shape in the upper corner started acting like a kind of emotional anchor. The chairs took on the feeling of figures in conversation. Even the sharp plant leaves in the foreground began to function almost like brushstrokes made solid.
What interests me most now is the tension between structure and instability. The composition is geometric, but the lines wobble. The perspective almost behaves, but not quite. The colors stay restrained until little flashes of pink and red begin vibrating at the edges. I realized while painting that I no longer wanted perfection. I wanted presence.
Rick said this painting feels like I’ve “turned a corner,” and I think he may be right.
Not technically. Technique is only part of the equation. The shift is more internal than that. Maybe age finally grants permission to stop proving things. To leave room for silence. To trust instinct over polish. To let the evidence of thought remain visible on the surface.
At this point in life, I’m less interested in paintings that announce themselves loudly. I’m more interested in paintings people remember later — paintings that quietly stay with them.
This one feels like that to me.
And for once, I knew it was finished not because there was nothing left to add, but because the painting finally started breathing on its own.
It’s hanging in our entryway.